Not Just A Drop

A thought that I have been coming back to all this week is about a drop in the ocean.  You can't begin to compare the difference in size between a vast expanse of ocean and just a small drop.  And yet the ocean is found within each tiny drop.  The drop doesn't depend on size in order to qualify as water, the same water that makes up the whole ocean.  So although the ocean is not a drop of water, in essence each drop is ocean.  

At this time of year many gardeners and those who grow crops are planning the layout of their land and beginning to sort out and acquire the seeds they need for this year's produce.  Within each tiny seed is the dna to grow and produce great crops that we in turn enjoy and devour, giving us energy and life.  Who would think that such a tiny thing had such great prospects all wrapped up within it's tiny package.  It reminds us of when Jesus referred to the mustard seed and how such a tiny thing can grow into a plant the size of a tree where birds can nest.  Although the seed is so small in comparison, it still has within it the essence of the plant it will become.

How often do we seek out the large, showy experiences in life. We make celebrities out of preachers, speakers and worship leaders.  We go to certain places in order to 'catch some of the spirit' manifest there.  No doubt there are occasions when large gatherings are a means of great blessing and situations where God pours out his spirit on many people.  But let's not forget that God is everywhere and therefore the same spirit and love of God that is manifest in large gatherings and special occasions is also in the small, insignificant moments, maybe when we're alone or carrying out some tedious, daily task.  God is there also in all his glory.  

Just as the entire ocean is in essence in each tiny drop and the large tree is in essence in the seed, so God is in all things whether large or small.  He is in all of his creation, seen or unseen, spectacular or ordinary.  For God there is no sacred and secular.  That is a distinction that humans have created.  His presence and love are everywhere and so for God all things are sacred.  You can touch the divine in all things, whether you are involved in a large revival meeting or sharing a coffee with a friend; whether you are enjoying the beauty of a great view of creation or tending a small house plant; whether you are amazed at the variety of species in the animal kingdom like some David Attenborough programme or feeling the touch of your pet as you sit and watch the television.  God has a wonderful way of making the ordinary extraordinary; the everyday spectacular; the insignificant meaningful.  May we learn to experience each ordinary moment as a drop full of divine presence.

Transformers

Turbo snail

I was looking for a Christmas gift for the small son of a nephew of mine.  There is so much to choose from!  I eventually found a book about an ordinary garden snail who dreamed of being fast and having adventures.  One day he had an accident with a vehicle on a busy road and then discovered that he had been transformed into Turbo.  He could now race along as quickly as other creatures.  The book continues describing some of the things he got up to.  

One of the many transformers

There are lots of toys that actually can be transformed into something else - transformers.  We all know the films that are so popular among children (and dare I say grown-ups also?)  They look like ordinary vehicles, a car, lorry, pick-up truck, helicopter or some other vehicle and drive around with their human friends.  Then when there is trouble they suddenly transform themselves into some life-saving, human- defender and protector and of course always save the day.  The thing about each of these examples is that there is no need for any add-on bits.  You only need what is already there to transform the toy from  an ordinary object into some super being.

Maybe as grown-ups we could take a lesson from the children.  We are always searching for something else.  We think that 'if only I had that opportunity' or 'I wish I were more like so-and-so'.  Paul, writing to the Romans says that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  He didn't advocate that we go looking for add-ons.  The children sing a song, 'And I just thank you Father for making me me'.  Again the children teach us wisdom in their simplicity.

Ainsley Harriott with chefs and contestants

It reminded me of the programme that used to be so popular on TV - Ready, Steady Cook.  The competing chefs could use basic ingredients like eggs, milk, flour, herbs and spices but for the other ingredients, they were only allowed to use what the contestants had brought them.  They had to make some interesting, tasty and innovative meal with what they had been given.  They couldn't bring any hidden extras or their favourite special ingredients, just what had been handed to them.  Sometimes they apologized saying that with this or that extra ingredient they would have made such and such but they still managed to come up with a great dish that their contestant enjoyed.  I enjoyed watching the programme as it gave me some good ideas for something different but also, I think, helped people to realize that you could do something good just with what you already had.

The other day I watched Neil Diamond on TV and was struck by a song I hadn't heard before.  It is basically a love song but I couldn't help thinking of it as a worship song and singing it to God.  It's called The Art of Love: (Try thinking of God as 'she'.)

She said, it's time to teach you the art of love.
She said we're gonna reach to the heart of love.
A place you never knew,
A place that lives somewhere inside of you.

Neil Diamond

You made me see I'd have to be
A brand new man, he lives in me.
So here in me is where I began. 

You showed the kind of lesson I can't erase.
You showed a way to get from that lonely place
To where love comes alive
And you'd be waiting there when I arrived.

The truth was clear,
Love's not a place you go to find.
It lives in here, just leave it space, give it time.
I learned that I could stumble and maybe fall.
I learned in being humble I'd have it all.
A brand new way to live,

God makes each of us the unique person we are and transforms us not by adding bits on or taking bits off but by renewing what is deep inside.  God, who is true Love, lives inside of each of us.  We don't really need to go anywhere to look for Him.  He is already within  our innermost being.  We just need to look within and be transformed into the person He wants us to be.  We are the people we have been waiting for.  All we need is to look inside ourselves and go with what the spirit deep within us is saying.  Transformers, not by adding extras and becoming different people but to be the people He made us to be with what He already has given us.  Transformed and come alive by the power of His love that is inside. .  

Everywhere, All The Time

This week I can't seem to get away from the fact that God is everywhere, all the time - maybe because He IS everywhere, all the time.  I guess the thought process really began last week when an online friend blogged about breathing God.  He talked about the Hebrew word for God, Yahweh, and how that really referred to breathing so that even just breathing you were actually saying the word Yahweh.  If you have 2-3 minutes you can read his blog entry by clicking here.  It is the post dated 6th November entitled Breathing.  The point I'm making is that all life breathes all the time wherever it finds itself.  In the beginning God breathed life into the universe, His breath, His presence into everything.  No life exists without His living breath and presence within it.  


Then this week another friend shared on Facebook the picture opposites saying in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson that wise people see miracles in ordinary things.   It seems to me that we tend to go looking here, there and everywhere for some expression of the power of God when He's all around us in the ordinary, everyday life.  I have often mentioned and will always be amazed at the cycle of nature and the seasons.  The very variety and detail of creation is astounding and documentaries seem to come up with new things all the time.  Some people have a tendency to imply that God can be found only in certain places or certain situations or certain times as though you need to go through some formula (usually involving special music, readings or prayers) of conjuring up His presence, even asking Him to come and be with us when God Himself clearly says that He is in all thing all the time.  Jesus also told us that the Holy Spirit is within us.


A couple of days ago the thoughts on God being everywhere continued when I read the daily meditation of Richard Rohr.  He is a Roman Catholic Franciscan priest whose daily meditations give much food for the soul.  You can subscribe to receive his daily thoughts on the website here and enter your details at the right hand side to subscribe.  He quotes Boniface when he says, 'By God's power, presence and essence, God is the one whose centre is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.  God exists uncircumscribed in everything.' meaning that God is everywhere.  Boniface goes on to say:

God is therefore all inclusive.  God is the essence of everything.  God is most perfect and immense within all things but not enclosed, outside all things but not excluded, above all things but not aloof, below all things but not debased.  Finally therefore, this God is all in all ... ... Consequently from Him, through Him and in Him, all things exist.



He is so powerful, He is everywhere at all times.  He is so spectacular, He makes so many miracles look like ordinary.  His presence is alive in every breath of every life form.  God is in everything and everything is in God.  It's time to stop searching here, there and everywhere.  Wherever I am, He is.  Or as St. Francis said 'The whole world is our cloister'.  As long as I breathe, He is within me.  Or as the song says, 'This is the air I breathe, your holy presence living in me.'   He is Yahweh, the I AM, the ever present breath of life, everywhere, all the time.

Nothing Times

It's been one of those weeks when nothing much has happened - a nothing week.  Last week the weather was like summer and so I got loads done and sorted in the garden.  By the weekend I felt that I had achieved a great deal.  This week has seemed quite the opposite.  Right from Monday, the storms came with horrendous wind and rain.  Although since then we haven't had the strong winds, the rain has persisted on and off all week, raining at some point every day so no gardening for me this week.  (I do it for pleasure, not out of obligation!)  You know there are times when you've been busy all day and yet looking back, you can't really see any difference.  It's as though you haven't done anything at all.  Well this week has been like that!  I've been as busy as last week but I can't see where.  There is no big sigh or relief or sense of achievement just the usual -  cleaning, washing, ironing, shopping and cooking..


I guess you could say that life has just been plodding on as usual - much of the same, ordinary, non-spectacular, hum-drum life activities.  Why is it that the ordinary seems so boring and unappealing?  Why do we crave the spectacular?  I am as guilty as the next in this.  I look at the facebook posts of friends and read the main heading of an article, looking for something that grabs my attention.  It's the same with newspapers and magazines.  Editors know that clever headlines can very often raise their readership figures, the more sensational the better it seems.  Films or TV programmes show the most intriguing bits in their adverts and trailers, making us curious and drawing us in, whetting our appetite and teasing us to want to see more.  Inevitably programmes that are part of a series, leave us with a cliff-hanger so we'll be sure not to miss next week's episode.


Most of life is not the sensational, headline-grabbing experience, yet we want that more than anything.  We yearn for some out-of-this-world experience believing somehow that it will give us some special insight into some life mystery.  Religious people search out events that might give them a spiritual edge over others, a sort of spiritual one-upmanship.  The truth is that plodding along in the ordinary is so often what shapes us and hones our senses to what goes on around us.  The spectacular is 'nice' and 'good' and yet somehow distant, way out there, with no or little connection with what we need to do on a daily basis.  It reminds me of Jesus and his disciples on what has become known as the Mount of Transfiguration.  The disciples had a great experience.  WOW!  What an experience - like touching the immortal, so much so that they wanted to stay there.  They wanted to build shrines so they could go back again and again to relive the experience.  How many of us have felt like that after some great meeting where there has been a great presence and outpouring of the Holy Spirit?  Jesus' reply was that now they had to go down from the mountain top experience and deal with real life where people were desperate for help and hope.


Special events, visitations or spiritual encounters are wonderful but don't let's get carried away.  They are not the norm or to be lived perpetually in a state of 'other-world'-iness.  So I thank God for the ordinary.  That's where I need to be - at least most of the time.  That's where life is really lived, in the hum-drum, sometimes boring, unspectacular plodding on.  As my mother used to often observe - we shouldn't be so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good.   

Bee Yourself

You can just about see the tiny white flowers near the top of the bush.

I spent some time the other day trying to trim back and tidy up some overgrown bushes at the bottom of the garden that had become a sort of mini forest.  It's a part of the garden that is mainly to make a natural barrier between our garden and the garden of the neighbours at the back of us.  So I like it to grow big and quite thick but it still needs the occasional 'haircut'.  While I was cutting away I noticed one bush had some tiny white flowers that I had never really noticed before.  They were so small that it is difficult to actually see them among all the foliage.  I couldn't help thinking that if that were a human they would possibly reason that hardly anyone ever goes to that part of the garden in the far corner at the back so why bother.  No-one would notice if it produced any flowers or not so what's the point?  But being a plant, it does just what it's designed to do.  Producing small flowers was something it just did in the annual cycle of life and it didn't depend on being noticed or appreciated.  It flowered anyway!

Taken from the BBC Springwatch Facebook page, 20th July 2014

We have heard much lately about the bees and how we need to look after them.  They are considered to be the most important pollinators of food crops.  It is thought that a third of the food we consume each day depends on pollination mainly by bees.  The inset picture shows some very interesting stats about bees and what they do.  We are encouraged to have a bee-friendly garden by planting the plants that will attract bees.  Local councils are encouraged to leave spare ground as wild meadows for bee-loving flowers to grow in the wild.  I was very interested to learn that bees don't actually go so much for the exotic types of flowers but are more drawn to the ordinary British flowers including most of the wild flowers.  It's really quite mind blowing to think that so much depends on such a small creature.  It doesn't have the size of an elephant, the fierce roar of a lion or the strength of a grizzly bear to make an impression.  It's so small that it flies from flower to flower without many noticing it at all.


The Bible verse comes to mind about how God uses the weak to confound the mighty and the well known story of the shepherd boy David defeating the giant Goliath.  The thing is that so often we look for success in size and strength.  You are taught from childhood that you have to climb the ladder of success at work.  People try to impress others by saying that their relative or close friend has such and such a position at work or a certain car or large house.  Some love to show off their suntan to give the impression (rightly or wrongly) that they have travelled to some far off land (implying a certain wealth?)  In many walks of life (even church life) there can be a sort of competition for popularity and trying to be more active and involved than someone else.  Some people spend their lives comparing themselves with others and aiming to copy them or be like them.  It gets to the point that often people can feel a bit of a failure for just being ordinary, with no particular talent to share.  They have a rather apologetic attitude and are always striving after some false goal to achieve in order to 'make something' of themselves.  Yet throughout the Bible and in creation God shows time and again how he loves the ordinary.  


The flower at the bottom of the garden just did what is was supposed to do.  The bee just gathers pollen and nectar to keep his extended family fed and surviving every day.  It doesn't know how important it is in the big scheme of things - it just does what it is meant to do each and every ordinary day.  And that is all that God asks of us.  He just wants me to be me.  He made me me because that was his plan and that is my purpose - just to be me.  If that entails just doing the ordinary, everyday things then that is what I should do.  Who knows in the big scheme of things what that might mean or lead to.  I might never know but that shouldn't stop me from being who God made me to be.  Even if you think you don't make a difference or nobody notices, like the tiny white flower, do it anyway.  No competing or comparing with others.  Just bee yourself!   

Busy, busy

The first half of this past week we have had some lovely weather and I managed to get into the garden and plant quite a few things - a few potatoes, carrots, peas and garlic.  At least I have made a start and hopefully over the next days and weeks more will get planted.  The lawn has had its first haircut of the year and my new lawn mower got used for the first time.  The other day my son said that he wanted to help me in the garden.  This was a bit of a surprise as he doesn't really like gardening but I wasn't going to argue.  Maybe he's taken pity on his old mother!  He did a great job in cutting down an unwanted tree and I'm sure I'll find many more jobs for him to do.


The latter half of the week has been quite cold with a great deal of fog well into the afternoon.  But still the men came and finally mended the roof, replacing the tiles that had been dislodged and broken during the last storm we had.  Slowly but surely it seems that life is taking on a more pleasant aspect.  This week I also managed to finish the jigsaw puzzle that I started a couple of weeks ago.  The trouble is there are 2 pieces missing and so that is now going out with the cardboard recycling next week.   On the whole it has been a week like any other week - always busy, doing the odd jobs to keep the home running and even when not busy with some activity, there's planning, thinking ahead, sorting out and catching up with emails and blogs.  One blog mentioned about someone who had returned to America after living in a country with a much slower pace of life.  She commented how she noticed the difference:

I saw there was a direct correlation between an obsession with self and an exhausting pace of life, even when the obsession was on good, churchy things. ... ... centering an entire day around productivity or effectiveness as a goal equaled very little focus on other people.  On relationships.

(Taken from http://www.aholyexperience.com, post entitled 'Why slowing down is paramount if we're ever to be the Body.')


It's so easy to get caught up in doing and achieving that we don't spend time slowing down.  Even in the everyday, same old, same old.  It is so easy and tempting to fill every minute with some activity to improve our situation or at least not to appear lazy.  And even when physically we stop doing things our minds are often sorting things out so that we have slowed the body but not our inner selves.  We still don't give our minds the space to just be and soak up God or give our time and attention to really listen to people without our minds half listening and half focusing on the next thing we need to be doing.  As Christians our objectives should not be all about monetary gain and profit but about Kingdom values of relationship one with another and with God - a good lesson and one I need to constantly remember.

Life in the Ordinary Lane

Stottie Cake

As I mentioned in my last post, a couple of friends recently visited the northeast where I was born and lived until my early twenties.  I later lived there from the mid 1970s until I retired in 2001 when I moved down to Yeovil in the West Country.  On their return, they called round to give me some stottie cake.  That is a sort of flat bread that is typical of that region of the UK.  It took me back to my childhood and subsequent years when I lived in there.  It is traditionally eaten with ham and pease pudding (a sort of very mushy peas with the texture rather like humus).  The thing that really stuck with me was the fact of how I had actually missed eating the simple, humble stottie cake and prompted within me a desire to rekindle those pleasurable tastes.  That's often the case with things that are part of our everyday lives - we don't really think about them.  In fact we often ignore those mundane, simple pleasures in search of something a little more upmarket or exotic.  The saying 'you don't miss the water til the well runs dry' comes to mind.  I also remembered how when we returned to live in England after having lived in Argentina for 10 years, I realised just how much I had missed having the humble snack of baked beans on toast.  it seems silly really that something so ordinary would be greatly missed.


The other day I heard on a television programme someone saying 'we underestimate normal'.  For a number of years I have taken part in a health study among a million women, receiving questionnaires on a regular basis.  I have recently just posted off to them my latest completed survey.  One of the questions was about everyday living and asked if I was able to wash myself, dress, prepare food, walk unaided, do shopping and so on.  I was happy to answer 'Yes' to all the questions and then I remembered what I had heard on the TV - 'we underestimate normal'.  You would think that to answer 'yes' to such questions would be normal for anyone but for some, these activities of basic everyday living are not something that they are able to do without help.  And I had to admit that I don't always realise that I am fortunate to be able to function quite normally in most things.  When I take longer to clean the house that I used to or find that I cannot carry such heavy bags of shopping and I tend to doze off in the chair while 'watching' the news on TV, I can feel a little sorry for myself so it was a good reminder that actually I have a better quality of life than many and should be grateful for 'normal'.


There is a tendency for this attitude to attach itself to other aspects of life.  Many people love the sensational headlines and it is claimed that this is often what sells newspapers.  Ordinary, good news doesn't get a look in.  It would seem that people are not interested in the ordinary; they get carried away on the wave of sensationalism caused by eye-catching headlines.  Sadly it's a bit like some Christians who crave the excitement of large gatherings and search after the next big thing, as if God is only found in the spectacular.  I am reminded that in the Bible when God called Moses to free the Israelites from Egypt, Moses felt inadequate and questioned how he could do such an enormous task.  God's reply was a question, 'What do you have in your hand?'  He didn't give him a list of necessary equipment that he somehow needed to acquire before he could set off on the momentous journey back to Egypt.  He was to use just what he had, what he used every day in his work, his staff.  God used what Moses already had as part of his daily life and used it to work the miracles before Pharaoh.


When Jesus fed the 5000, he didn't send the disciples off with a long list of things to bring back.  He took what anyone would have on a day out in the country - a packed lunch, nothing spectacular, just two small fish and some bread for a hungry young lad.  What is spectacular about how God works is that He takes the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.  He takes the mundane, everyday, nothing special along with ordinary, nothing special people and performs miracles through their ordinary-ness to bless and feed others.  The amazing gifts of the Holy Spirit are wonderful and it is indeed great to experience such gifts and see the wonderful outpourings of God but it would be wrong to think that God only works through the spectacular.  God is in the day-to-day living and works through the ordinary everyday occurrences and speaks to us and through us to others.  It is good to seek spiritual gifts and be part of a big move of God but we must be careful that we don't waste a lot of energy craving after the spectacular in order to find God while ignoring (and sometimes even demeaning) what we already have.  It's a bit like the elder son who returns from his work in the fields and hears what a great time his prodigal brother is having back at the house and he complains to his father.  His father reminds him that everything they were enjoying at that moment had been there all the time if only the elder brother had realised it.  He is already with us in so many ordinary ways if we only stop and look for Him.